The truth is that I was dreading the Winter Olympics. Not just because of the fear of traffic and terrorism, but the thought of having to watch hours and hours of winter sports competition was sort of sickening.
(I'm a football-and-basketball kind of guy.)
I've seen more of these Games than any other — virtually all of NBC's prime-time coverage and big chunks of daytime events on NBC, CNBC and MSNBC and a lot of NBC's late-night show as well.
And, frankly, I've greatly enjoyed almost all of it. Which says something for just how good a job NBC has done presenting the Games.
It wasn't perfect, but then nothing is. Particularly when so much of it is live.
But the only thing I really hated about NBC's coverage was the skiing analysts who yelled constantly. Even, on occasion, during replays.
(Note to analysts — if you yell constantly, then we have no way to gauge whether something exciting is happening.)
But when someone who criticizes TV for a living can't find much to complain about, well, that's the highest praise I can give the folks at NBC.
ALMOST ALL GOOD: NBC's nearly eight-minute segment on the LDS Church and the 2002 Olympics — featuring Tom Brokaw's pre-Games interview with President Gordon B. Hinckley — was nicely done, non-sensational and sympathetic without sacrificing journalism. That, combined with comments made by Brokaw and Bob Costas in the studio after the piece ran, added up to about as positive as anyone in Utah could possible expect.
But . . . it's hard to pass over one incredibly dumb question Brokaw posed. On the subject of polygamy, the NBC anchorman asked, "When it does arise, as it has in recent years, should the church be more aggressive about making sure that all the members of the LDS understand that this is no longer acceptable?"
Well, duh. It strains credulity that a member of the church wouldn't know that polygamy is grounds for excommunication. The problem is that members of the media — including those at NBC News — can't or won't distinguish between polygamists who claim to be Mormons and members of the LDS Church.
THE TRUTH HURTS: Jonny Moseley, who won a gold medal in freestyle skiing at the 1998 Winter Games, probably won't be in any spots for the Utah Travel Council, given what he had to say on the "Late Show with David Letterman" earlier this week.
"Yeah, I liked Utah," he said with a decided lack of enthusiasm. "I think up in the mountains it was nice. . . . But down in Salt Lake, they have a pretty big smog problem."
Maybe that's why he didn't medal this time around.
Of course, Saturday afternoon on NBC the shots from the Goodyear blimp showed a decided brown haze in the Salt Lake Valley.
FUNNY STUFF: I've given "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno a hard time — and he deserved it. His "Olympic Tonight Show" has been largely crude and unfunny. But he did get off a few good lines on Friday night:
- "Russia is so upset over the judging in this and some of the events, they're threatening to pull out of the closing ceremonies. Ooooh — they've got a lot of bargaining power, don't they? Give us what we want, or we won't walk around in a circle when the Games are over."
- "When the Russians fly home, they should have no trouble getting through the medal detector."
- "The Russians have just come out with a new sports drink. . . . This is Boris' Sour Grape Juice."
It's amazing how much better Leno is when he stops telling sex jokes. And he made it almost to the end of his monologue before he got tacky again. But, of course, shortly after the monologue, Park City "correspondent" Dave Chappelle came on and was as gross as ever.
THE RATING GAME: Day 15 of the Salt Lake Games brought NBC a 17.7 rating and a 31 share. The 15-day average is now a 19.2/31, which is 14 percent higher than the first 15 days of CBS's coverage of the Nagano Games.
Once again, Salt Lake City was the highest-rated local market, averaging a 37.1/62.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com
